To brand is to be consistent. To build consistency, you have to have a system in place. This includes all of the things you need to do before you start branding as well as routine tasks you’ll continue to perform ongoing. Everything needs to be as efficient as possible. This is how the branding pros do it and you can do it as well.

Be Clear from the Beginning

Write down a statement about your brand’s vision. It should be as short and concise as possible, and should include who you are, what you do, and your promise to your audience. Whether or not you use this as an official statement doesn’t matter; what matters here is just getting it clear for yourself. What do you want people to remember you for? What’s your unique position in the market?

Identify Your Natural Strengths

Your natural strengths provide the engine for your personal brand. It’s these strengths that will shine through everything you do. What are you good at naturally without even trying? Discover these strengths and figure out ways to make them work for you. When you know what you do well, you don’t need to be egocentric or fake. Your promises will be real.

Choose Your Tools

Branding is about getting your message in front of the people who need to hear it. Today’s readily available resources include Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, your own blog, article directories, forums, press release sites, podcasts directories, and more. Brainstorm a list of these avenues for exposure and decide which you’re going to use. You should also devote time to searching out new sites and strategies.

Create Your Design

Your design features should be consistent. Choose fonts, colors, phrases and images that embody your brand. Take a good headshot that reflects the image you want to convey. Make sure it’s not too close or too far away. Choose other images and templates that you’ll use. Look at some sites and profiles of people that have strong brands to get ideas.

Create a Schedule

Take all of your routine branding tasks and budget and schedule them. Decide how much time you’re going to devote each day to each task. If you’re not sure what these tasks should be, start with your goal (the statement you wrote to clarify). How can you achieve that? Keep asking yourself ‘how’ until you arrive at concrete tasks that will get you closer to it.

Listen to People

Learn about your audience by getting active on social media and subscribing to like-minded blogs. See what people are sharing, bookmarking and talking about. The better you know your audience, the better you’ll be able to tailor your offers to them. You should also sign up for alerts so that you’ll know whenever your brand is mentioned. Keep a careful eye on what people are saying about you.

Get Organized

Put all of your tools and resources in one place. Social bookmarking sites are great for this. When you have everything organized, it saves you lots of time and makes your personal branding much more efficient.

The most important thing is to monitor everything you do and look for results. If certain daily tasks aren’t getting you results even after a few weeks, drop them and focus on something else. Whenever possible, split test your images, posts, and offers to see which version your audience prefers. Finally, because things are always changing in the online world, devote some time to searching out new ideas.

Creating a branded resume makes your job search much easier. It’s a resume that clearly distinguishes you from others and sells hiring managers on your unique qualities. Today, it’s not a matter of ‘Why should I hire you,’ but ‘Why should I hire you instead of all these other people?’ Your branded resume should tell would-be employers just that.

Laser Targeting

First things first. Who are you targeting and how well do you know them? Creating a branded resume that speaks directly to the hiring manager and their needs is what gets your foot in the door. Immerse yourself in the industry and identify the specific headaches employers are looking to alleviate. In your branded resume, use industry-specific jargon and terminology so that you’re speaking their language. Research job listings and companies to get ideas. If possible, talk to someone in the industry to get advice. Bonus: hone in on redundant words in job descriptions. Copy and paste job posts into Wordle for further insight into key words and see which of them are more prominent than others. Include these in your resume.

Play to Your Strengths

Your natural strengths are the things you can do without even trying. They come through not so much in your hard skills, but in your soft skills. These are things like your ability to think on your feet, communicate, collaborate, and innovate. Dig deep – look at your personality, work experience, and those soft, value-added skills money just can’t buy in order to discover these natural strengths. Be sure to convey these on your branded resume.

Become a Hiring Manager

Look at your resume from the point of view of a hiring manager. “Why should I hire you?” Does it clearly tell them what benefits you’re going to bring to their company? Does it spell out loud and clear the value you bring that others lack? Branding is about more than just logos and design. Good branding shows your unique contribution.

Value Proposition

Create your own unique value proposition. This is one sentence that says in as few words as possible exactly what benefits you bring (see Brand Boost). Trim any words or phrases that don’t specifically explain these benefits. Your value proposition should be clear on your branded resume from start to finish.

Provide Evidence

Make bold claims about what you can do and then use your resume’s sections to back them up. Your job experience and educational background sections shouldn’t just be laundry lists of job responsibilities. Captivate your reader. Your resume should include detailed facts and figures that emphasize the results you’ve achieved. To a hiring manager, this translates to the results you’ll bring to the company. Spend some time brainstorming your past achievements, focusing on how you’ve helped employers, customers, coworkers, and clients.

Quick and Focused

Cut the fat. Trim your resume of anything that doesn’t contribute to branding you. It should be simple and easy to read. The most important bits should be at the top and the left-hand side because these are the areas where the eye naturally falls. Secret: Objective section is a thing of the past – skip it.

When you’re writing your resume, remember that it will provide talking points for your interview. Include all of the success stories that you’d like to tell the hiring manager. Make sure that everything contributes to creating the personal brand that is You.

15 WordPress User Errors That Make You Look Silly [Infographic] | Copyblogger. BeUbique has been up and crawling for less than two months. Finding myself checking this infographic from Copyblogger over the last few weeks while building BU has proved quite useful for this novice. Still learning the ropes of WP and all it has […]